An Argument for Nuclear Energy
In this essay I compare nuclear power and coal combustion with the goal of raising public perception of the former
In this article I seek to compare and contrast two methods of energy generation: nuclear fission and coal combustion. I look at several factors, such as emissions released during extraction, preparation and energy generation and compare the relative merits and demerits of each. Additionally I explore the final stages for both methods once the energy has been generated and the useful life of the chosen fuel is over.
Across the board nuclear power seems to be a cleaner and overall safer form of energy production. While there have been two high profile cases of nuclear facilities failing and causing radiation to leak out into the environment, this is an exceedingly rare abnormality. Compare this to the burning of fossil fuel which causes some amount of harm constantly while also producing far more waste materials.
Would you rather trust your life to a cosmic dice roll, or slowly poison yourself day after day?
We live in the midst of an energy revolution: year after year staggering advances are being made in the world of renewable energy technologies that enable a gradual divorce from fossil fuels. Countries continue to invest in, as well as implement, these technologies in the form of vast solar arrays, fields of wind turbines, refinements to hydroelectric plants and more. Yet despite the leaps of progress that are made we still aren’t ready for a “fully green” world. The technology simply isn’t there yet.
Enter nuclear energy, the ugly stepchild of the clean energy debate. On one side of the issue people would argue that this is a technology that we currently have access to that could satisfy our energy needs and move us away from fossil fuel en masse practically overnight. On the other side this is a dirty source of energy that causes more direct harm than the fossil fuel power plants we currently use while simultaneously slowing down the push for renewables. With Germany recently shutting down the last of its nuclear power plants, I wanted to explore the topic and come down on one side of the issue.
Before we begin discussing the relative pros and cons of nuclear energy, it’s important to get a baseline understanding of how a conventional plant operates. In essence a nuclear power plant is just boiling water to create steam that turns a turbine which generates the power you’re using to read this blogpost. The radioactive material is arranged into fuel rods which undergo nuclear fission, a process where the larger atom splits into smaller pieces and releases a ton of energy. This excess energy is what heats the water to a boil. The reasons radioactive materials are used instead of coal or other combustible materials are twofold: radioactive materials are incredibly energy dense when compared to fossil fuels, and they produce far fewer emissions.
In order to be fair, however, you can’t simply look at the emissions released during actual energy generation. There is a cost associated with extraction and preparation of materials, as well as the disposal of waste products. Therefore I’ll be giving an overview of the pollution caused at all three stages of energy production for nuclear and coal. I chose coal due to its continued widespread usage around the world, especially with Germany increasing their usage of it as they shut down their final nuclear power plants.
As previously stated, throughout the entire process nuclear energy is a lower emissions form of energy than coal or other fossil fuels. If we first compare the two different types of energy generation, nuclear is a clear winner. The only thing being emitted from a nuclear power plant is clouds of water vapor. Remember, it’s really just a highly sophisticated water boiling facility, so all of those gasses you see rising from a cooling tower are just big clouds of water vapor. Compare this to a coal burning power plant that’ll be emitting carbon dioxide (CO2), Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), mercury and other dangerous byproducts. We’re well aware at this point that CO2 is a leading cause of global warming through its status as a greenhouse gas, and SO2 can result in acid rain in high concentrations.
Once you start looking into what it takes to get this fuel from the Earth and prepare it for use, nuclear begins to show its uglier side however. Nuclear fuel rods are made of uranium, and in order to get uranium from the ground it must either be mined, which scars the landscape, unleashes dangerous radon gas and exposes miners to radioactive uranium, or through “situ leaching” where groundwater is pumped full of chemicals in order to dissolve uranium, which is then harvested and processed to collect the uranium. Both methods leave behind radioactive byproducts that present harm to those in the area.
Once it’s extracted from the ground it requires an enrichment process in order to be of sufficient quality for reactor usage. This is another area where critics of nuclear power will point out its harm, as the enrichment process requires more than 75% of the total energy needed to get uranium out of the ground and into a reactor. However, the energy required for that entire process is still relatively small when compared to what it takes to get a similar amount of energy from a coal powered plant. Depending on the study, the emissions that result from harvesting and preparation of uranium are only 0.5-4% of the total emissions that would come from an equivalent amount of energy generation from a coal plant. To put it another way, to rely on coal exclusively for energy generation would result in putting 25-200 times as much CO2 into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Finally we can examine what happens to either fuel source after the energy has been generated. At present there are a few different avenues nuclear fuel rods can take at the end of their useful life. The first step all countries take is placing the spent fuel rods in a holding pool. This gives the rods time to cool and reduces their level of radiotoxicity. The next step depends on what country you’re in, and even which facility you’re looking at. Some countries, like Japan and France, recycle much of their nuclear waste. This has several benefits, such as drastically reducing the volume and potency of radiotoxic materials as well as recovering valuable materials for use in other industries. Other countries like Sweden and Finland are developing plans for long term storage of radioactive waste. These storage facilities would be placed in holding canisters that are several layers thick to contain radioactive particles, and then stored deep underground in inert geology in order to keep if far away from civilization.
Compare all of this to coal power plants which produce far greater amounts of waste in a year than nuclear has in all of its operating time in the U.S. It’s estimated that since the 50’s there have been roughly 90,000 metric tons of spent fuel rods produced in the U.S., which is small when compared to the 140,000 tons of coal ash the EPA estimates is generated annually. And this isn’t benign waste, either. Coal ash is full of harmful substances such as arsenic and mercury. Exposure to coal ash can cause shortness of breath and irritation to the throat and nose in the short term, and a host of cancers and other maladies in the long run. Unfortunately, exposure is all too common in the United States. According to the EPA, some plants are allowed to discharge this waste directly into waterways. Other plants mix the ash with water into a slurry and store this in massive standing reservoirs, which don’t have a perfect track record. In 2008 a massive coal ash slurry reservoir burst and unleashed more than a billion gallons of the waste directly into a residential area. The cleanup process took more than five years and caused the death of several workers due to the hazardous nature of the material.
To be fair to coal plants, some of the ash is recycled and used in byproducts such as concrete or wallboard. But the fact remains that much of this material is kept dangerously close to civilization and stored in suboptimal conditions. If you think back to the question I posed at the top of this article, you may be able to see the connection it has to this energy debate. Every day that we rely on coal and other fossil fuels to deliver the majority of our energy, we’re accepting both a slow and constant poisoning of our bodies and the environment as well as the planet. There’s no debate around this: it’s widely known that coal is dangerous at every step of the process, from the mines to the furnaces and beyond.
Compare this to nuclear energy, which is less costly and damaging to extract, is far more energy dense and therefore we need less of it than we do coal, drastically cuts down on emissions across the board and can be stored in a relatively managed way. No, it’s not perfect. I discussed several of the most commonly talked about issues with nuclear energy, but didn’t touch on all of them, like the fact that the U.S.’s uranium mining operation continues to expose the Navajo people to dangerous levels of radiation to this day. And while most nuclear plants have operated for decades without incident, stories like Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi are scary and bring to mind tragedies like the bombing of Japan in World War 2. Human error and natural disasters happen and despite our best planning can lead to the worst possible scenarios. But that’s the key point. With nuclear power, we run the risk of disaster. With fossil fuels we know with certainty that it’s coming.
Personally, I’m pro-nuclear energy. The technology and understanding in this field has advanced in many ways over the decades and is safer than ever. Through nuclear power plants we can make massive strides in the fight to reduce global emissions and curb the effects of climate change caused by rising greenhouse gasses. I’m also pro-renewables. I fully support the research being done in these industries and would love to see a world that incorporates a variety of these green energy sources into our total portfolio. Most importantly, I’m anti-fossil fuels. This is an inefficient, dirty and dangerous source of fuel that needed to be left in the 20th century. It’s a shame that Germany took a step backwards in time and increased its dependency on fossil fuels, and it’s an embarrassment that the United States isn’t investing more into nuclear energy. Year after year we hear of rising sea water and ever worsening storms. It’s time we get serious about protecting our planet. It’s time we get serious about nuclear energy.
Consider the nuclear Navy. It's been operating nuclear power plants since the 60's. I remember an assembly in junior high school where a representative of the Navy argued that the nuclear power plants in submarines were the wave of the future. As they were small, lasted decades had zero pollution and one in the nuclear submarines of the day could power a city of 25,000. The problem is they the engineers try to make giant plants that provide power for hundreds of thousands of people far simpler to provide small contained nuclear units that are easily managed, safe and last for a very long time